Rationing According to Sex 



This famine-stricken refectory can give us 

 nothing but an abortion. As a matter of 

 fact, the Dioxys subjected to this niggardly 

 test does not die, for the parasite must have 

 a tough constitution to enable it to face the 

 disastrous hazards which lie in wait for it; 

 but it attains barely half its ordinary dimen- 

 sions, which means one-eighth of its normal 

 bulk. To see it thus diminished, we are sur- 

 prised at its tenacious vitality, which en- 

 ables it to reach the adult form in spite of 

 the extreme deficiency of food. Meanwhile, 

 this adult is still the Dioxys; there is no 

 change of any kind in her shape or colouring. 

 Moreover, the two sexes are represented; 

 this family of pigmies has its males and fe- 

 males. Dearth and the farinaceous mess in 

 the Osmia's cell has had no more influence 

 over species or sex than abundance and flow- 

 ing honey in the Chalicodoma's home. 



The same may be said of the Spotted 

 Sapyga (S. punctata) ,^ which, a parasite of 

 the Three-pronged Osmia, a denizen of the 

 bramble, and of the Golden Osmia, an oc- 

 cupant of empty Snail-shells, strays into the 

 house of the Tiny Osmia (O. parvula)^^ 



lA parasitic Wasp. Cf. The Mason-bees: chaps, ix. 

 and X. — Translator's Note. 

 2 This Bee makes her home in the brambles. Cf. Bram- 



22,7 



